Excise may order CB probe into detection of hooch in bar

Inspection under way in all 35 bar hotels in Kozhikode district

The Department of Excise is likely to order a Crime Branch investigation into the incident in which a bar hotel manager at Kodenchery in Kozhikode district was arrested on the charge of procuring and selling a huge quantity of illicit liquor using old bottles of cheap brands. As part of the follow-up investigation, the hotel has been sealed by the officials, who have also carried out flash inspections in other parts of the district to check the quality of the existing stock.

The district-level special squad that exposed the fraud by seizing 650 bottles of liquor from the bar on Sunday is now on a task to track the exact source of the adulterated product which was distilled and packaged following no government-approved quality parameters or safety regulations. In the checking, it was found that the poor quality liquor was purchased by the bar hotel management to escape from a number of tax payment liabilities and to net a higher retail margin by cheating the customers.

“It was a clear case of illicit liquor trade where the brand names of some of the cheapest products were misused to cheat the customers. The liquor was brought to the spot in barrels and it was later filled into the used bottles of three commonly available cheap brands,” said Deputy Excise Commissioner K. Jayapalan. The main intention of using such stock was to avoid an accurate purchase record at the office and evade a number of tax liabilities, he told The Hindu.